For complete and casual fans alike, Joe “Shithead” Keithley’s Talk - Action = 0: An Illustrated History of D.O.A. is as close as you’ll get to hearing (and seeing) the story of Canada’s most important punk band directly from the man himself.

Throughout the book’s 300 pages, Keithley tells the tales of his Vancouver band’s beginnings from an early incarnation known as The Skulls through short and to-the-point stories.

The fact that Keithley writes in sentence fragments only adds to the realism of the book; with tales of battling Nazi skinheads, having the Hell’s Angels (then known as Satan’s Angels) working security at early shows, and even mosh pits with Jello Biafra, it’s interesting without being gossipy.

Words aside, he lets the images do the talking as well.

Like a punk rock scrapbook, there is literally an example of every show poster, record sleeve (from rough concept drafts to the completed foreign and domestic) and lineup of the band.

There are also chicken scratches from Keithley’s personal notebooks; it’s safe to say that not a lot of living musicians would allow such intimate and innocent moments to be printed, but knowing Keithley, it’s likely to help show aspiring punks, writers and everyone out there that anything is possible if you put your mind to it.

From 1977 to the present, each section is broken down, not so much by chapters, but by movements in the genre and lineups.

The evolution is exciting to see all laid out for the reader, watching different bands such as the Subhumans form around the scene that D.O.A. helped to create, as well as the bands that Keithley and co. opened for (including an underwhelming show with The Clash).

This is a phenomenal book, a great tribute to a band that still kills live and is as relevant and important now as it was 30 years ago. 
It’s also worthy to note that there is a severe lack of Canrock books out there. Other than Have Not Been the Same: The Canrock Renaissance 1985-1995, and a handful of autobiographies, there aren’t really any collections like this one.

Someone should really light a fire under some asses and get our other Canrock mainstays (The Tragically Hip, 54-40, Ian Blurton) to throw together a collection like this one.

Published in Volume 66, Number 11 of The Uniter (November 9, 2011)